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Confession of an IQ Hacker

Intro I’ve never taken an IQ test, at least not unofficially, that is, of the HRIQ type test. Now, before you get your hair all up on your back thinking I’ve cheated on the some 40+ odd unofficial IQ tests taken, think again. With that said, maybe before I start, I should give a minor bio, at least as it relates to this essay. Bio My name is Kenneth Myers. I was two years old in 64, 1964. When I was small, all I liked to do was tinker or “hack” (as in the MIT definition, not the cybernasty kind) at things. That is, I was someone with playful technical ingenuity and spirit. Too, I detested academics, or anything for that matter, taught by another. In other words, I enjoyed the art of self discovery and experimentation. Each of these philosophical “moods” spilled over into every aspect of my life. From hacking at TV sets, to hacking at parents. You name it, I hacked at it. In my life I’ve taken exactly four official IQ tests, two of them noted, two of them not. The first test was the SB...
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Medical Talent

As a member of Prudentia High IQ Society I am accustomed to very high scores in intelligence tests. However, medical school was tough for me as I had problems memorizing all the details. What does this say about my real talent? Apparently, there are different types of cognitive talent. One type is analytical talent, which is about discovering patterns and quick understanding. This is what intelligence tests measure. The other type is memory talent - memorizing facts and details quickly. Medical school selects mostly for memory talent. But does that mean that analytical talent does not play a role in the medical profession? If it does, why is it neglected at medical school? One possible explanation is historical. Medical education developed in a time when access to information was limited. Physicians had to store large amounts of knowledge in their own memory because books were scarce and consulting references during daily practice was often impossible. Under those circumstances, select...
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A Curious Question

Imagine. If you are some 97–99% of the population, you can, at least to some degree, summon up a mental image. For instance, if I simply write, “Imagine a sunset...” that, in most readers, summons the actual “image” of a sunset in the mind’s eye so to speak. Now, if you were me, you could not do this to any degree, not even a mere flicker of a sunset. In fact, if you were me, you would have a power of visualization equal to  zero , meaning, of course, that absolutely nothing, that is, the actual no–thing , would be in your head, utter darkness to be exact. I can, however, conceive . Form a conception of a sunset, it being, some complex product of abstract and reflective thinking. Though it is strange, the conception of a sunset, possessing as it were Aristotelian bodies with properties, like: the sun with an orange hue, the earth/sky horizon as a Cartesian line superimposed on the background to demarcate and hence create the idea of a sunset , the impending darkness, etc. but none ...
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How Logic Confronts Reality

AI is at the forefront of many people’s minds these days. Most, have absolutely no idea what it is, and probably do not care. Some, and I’ve encountered a few of these lately, are deeply disturbed by it and believe it to somehow indicate, cheating. When I was young, no this is not some I told you so story; the hand held calculator was introduced. I recall some of the remarks, especially from the pedantic type teacher. The one that is still salient is what I might call; the square root of two . Oh my God, you would here, this generation will not be able to compute the square root of a number. What will we do? Honestly, unless pressed on the matter, I need to look it up. I know some methods, decimal and binary methods, for instance, Heron’s and Newton’s method without looking anything up. However, they are time consuming. So, why not pull out a calculator and press a button? Really!? And now, today, we have AI. And many are freaking out just like they did with the square root calculator....
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High Range IQ Tests Made Easy, Part II

A Little HRIQ Psychology I wanted to talk a bit more about the differences of intelligence or IQ and metaintelligence or metaIQ. Namely, consider a line of ever increasing complexity in a game like, chess. That is, what separates a grand master from a novice. Well, it is one of ever increasing ability to handle the complexity of the domain of chess. That is, of ever increasing “tests” of intelligence along the singular domain of chess. Notice, we do not change the domain, that being chess and its rules. However, what we see changing is a line of ever increasing complexity, constrained of course, along a single dimension constituting the game of chess. And this is exactly my point. There exists within this domain no arbitrary redefinition of the game. If so, we call it a new game, like Kriegspiel, a variant of chess and we understand the rules, explicitly . Still, though, within the hypernym of chess. Now let us return to the metaIQ tests, or HRIQ tests in existence today. They, like I ...
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High Range IQ Tests Made Easy

Definition WARNING : All high range IQ tests are bad. What do I mean by this statement? Well, for one, I am not being derogatory. They are all, in fact, bad. However, in what sense? They are not, for one, stupid. Nor are they boring. Well?! They are not silly. However, they do not measure what they purport to measure, that is, intelligence. Still, like their psychological brethren, the official IQ test, they are flawed, better still, wobbly but wobblier still. Since they are not measuring intelligence, what exactly are they measuring? Commonsense might dictate that HRIQ tests are measuring intelligence. In fact, commonsense would be wrong. What HRIQ tests measure are people already defined by the system as intelligent, people that is, with IQs measuring at or above 130. So, what HRIQ tests are measuring is, to turn a phrase, metaintelligence . Now, we do not even begin to understand what intelligence is, artificial or otherwise, and here you go throwing metaintelligence into the mix. L...
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Is AI the End of Protestant Anthropology?

For several centuries, Western societies have operated under an implicit anthropology: the human being is justified through work. This assumption is so deeply ingrained that we rarely recognize it as theological in origin. Yet its roots lie in the Protestant Reformation — and its cultural crystallization was famously analyzed by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Now artificial intelligence — especially large language models — confronts this anthropology with an unprecedented challenge. The question is no longer economic. It is anthropological. 1. What Is “Protestant Anthropology”? To understand what may be ending, we must clarify what emerged. With Martin Luther and later John Calvin , the concept of Beruf (calling) underwent a radical transformation. In medieval Christianity: Monastic life was spiritually superior. Contemplation ranked above labor. In Protestant thought: Every profession became a divine calling. Ordinary work becam...
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